Review: Adventures in Yarn Farming
Adventures in Yarn Farming: Four Seasons on a New England Fiber Farm by Barbara Parry
The title is dull and she should've probably picked something different. It's hard to tell your story, be informative, and not be dead boring. However, Parry is both entertaining and educational. She's got a ton of lovely pictures of her lambs and sheep along with all the fleeces and wools she collects. She dyes her own wool after it's been spun. It's a lovely book that tells how she quit teaching and with her retired husband bought 200 acres of land to start fiber farming with 2 sheep.
She starts at the beginning of finding out about sheep and which ones to buy to increase her flock and learning how to keep the farm and the sheep going. She gives a detailed account of the lambing process and how they grow and get weaned, wear their coats to protect the wool, and how they get sheared. She talks about her garden, cutting the hay and keeping the flock safe. There are even knitting patterns. They're too advanced for me, but they were pretty. There are recipes, too, for those that enjoy them.
The most amusing thing is when she talks about Crackerjack, her llama. He's the nanny of her flock, especially when her ewes go into labor and when the lambs are still very young. He's the leader, teacher, and protector of the younger lambs when they're in the barn and in the field. I've read a lot of books about shepherding, but they all used herding dogs. She uses Crackerjack and later on a few other llamas as her flocks increase in size. I had never really heard about this technique and it fascinates me how a llama would be such a great addition to a flock both as a teacher and guardian.
It's a really good book even if you skip the technical stuff about dying the yarn. The stories are written like real stories and not a text book. It's really one of the most enjoyable books I've read in a very long time. It certainly gives me a new appreciation of what it takes to make wool yarn available for the consumer.
The title is dull and she should've probably picked something different. It's hard to tell your story, be informative, and not be dead boring. However, Parry is both entertaining and educational. She's got a ton of lovely pictures of her lambs and sheep along with all the fleeces and wools she collects. She dyes her own wool after it's been spun. It's a lovely book that tells how she quit teaching and with her retired husband bought 200 acres of land to start fiber farming with 2 sheep.
She starts at the beginning of finding out about sheep and which ones to buy to increase her flock and learning how to keep the farm and the sheep going. She gives a detailed account of the lambing process and how they grow and get weaned, wear their coats to protect the wool, and how they get sheared. She talks about her garden, cutting the hay and keeping the flock safe. There are even knitting patterns. They're too advanced for me, but they were pretty. There are recipes, too, for those that enjoy them.
The most amusing thing is when she talks about Crackerjack, her llama. He's the nanny of her flock, especially when her ewes go into labor and when the lambs are still very young. He's the leader, teacher, and protector of the younger lambs when they're in the barn and in the field. I've read a lot of books about shepherding, but they all used herding dogs. She uses Crackerjack and later on a few other llamas as her flocks increase in size. I had never really heard about this technique and it fascinates me how a llama would be such a great addition to a flock both as a teacher and guardian.
It's a really good book even if you skip the technical stuff about dying the yarn. The stories are written like real stories and not a text book. It's really one of the most enjoyable books I've read in a very long time. It certainly gives me a new appreciation of what it takes to make wool yarn available for the consumer.